The Court of The Hague has handed down another ruling that restricts access to The Pirate Bay website. The Court has forbidden the Dutch Pirate Party from linking to, operating or listing websites that allow the public to circumvent a local Pirate Bay blockade. The political party is further ordered to shutdown its reverse proxy indefinitely and block Pirate Bay domains and IP-addresses from its generic proxy.
Following an earlier court ruling that ordered two of the largest ISPs in the Netherlands to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay, today anti-piracy group BREIN has scored another success. The Court of The Hague has just ordered a further five ISPs to block TPB IP addresses and 20 domain names. Failure to do so within 10 days will result in fines of up to 250,000 euros.
After 8 years the legal battle between Google and adult magazine publisher Perfect 10 has been put to rest. The latter accused the search giant of a variety of copyright infringement breaches which included Google’s use of cached images. In a final attempt to save the case, Perfect 10 offered a $25,000 bounty to anyone who could prove wrongdoing on Google’s part but the initiative failed. The case has now been dismissed without the option for further appeal.
Following a complaint made by HBO, an administrator of a popular streaming TV show and movie portal was arrested by authorities in Chile during March this year. The 26-year-old student was subsequently charged with breaches of copyright law and forbidden from leaving the country. Now he’s been set free due to lack of evidence but is banned from accessing his former site and has to give copyright lectures in schools.
The Pirate Bay has partnered with the Cybernorms research group at Sweden’s Lund University to carry out the second round of the largest file-sharing survey in history. Through the survey the researchers examine the norms of file-sharers, and how they respond to increased censorship and tougher laws. One of the main goals of the research project is to give a counterweight to entertainment industry propaganda.
Later this month an individual who allegedly uploaded thousands of movies and TV shows to cyberlocker services will face trial and a possible 5 year prison sentence. The 29-year-old, who was also the moderator of a warez forum, committed the alleged infringements over a period of more than 4 years. The movie industry claims he cost them nearly $4.2m but the Pirate Party reject the damages calculations as “simply ridiculous.”
Despite the widespread availability of pirated releases, The Avengers just scored a record-breaking $200 million opening weekend at the box office. While some are baffled to see that piracy failed to crush the movie’s profits, it’s really not that surprising. Claiming a camcorded copy of a movie seriously impacts box office attendance is the same as arguing that concert bootlegs stop people from seeing artists on stage.
Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.
Left Quote“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.
Peter Sunde Left Quote
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